Norway’s Oil Decline Accelerating

New oil projects are being scrapped in Norway amid falling production and low oil prices.

Long held up as the model for managing oil abundance, Norway has painstakingly sought to prevent the problems that occur with other natural resource-based economies, such as corruption, slow economic growth, currency appreciation, and subsequently, deindustrialization.

Since 1990, Norway has diverted much of its oil earnings to a sovereign wealth fund, which has become the world’s largest. The money, reaching $890 billion as of June 2014, amounts to $178,000 for every Norwegian citizen. The sovereign wealth fund helps Norway avoid some of the problems associated with the “resource curse” by investing capital abroad. But more importantly, the money is set aside to be saved and invested to help the country plan for the eventual decline of oil production, with the intention of transitioning to a more diversified economy that can take oil’s place.

Email Subscription

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 749 other followers

About the Institute

Founded in 2003, the Prometheus Institute is a non-partisan US-based non-profit delivering insight and action dedicated to achieve sustainable and universal economic, industrial, environmental, and human development...